The Black History of the White House

by Clarence Lusane

  103. Bositis, Blacks and the 1992 National Democratic Convention, p. 29.

  104. A. H. Lawrence, Duke Ellington and His World: A Biography (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 377; and Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: My Journey From Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and beyond. . . . (New York: Times Books, 1997), p. 172.

  105. Hasse, Beyond Category, p. 373.

  106. Ibid.

  107. Kirk, Music at the White House, p. 322.

  108. Ibid., p. 343.

  109. Ibid.

  110. Richard Harrington, “Lionel Hampton’s South Lawn Serenade,” Washington Post, September 11, 1981.

  111. William H. Honan, “Book Discloses That Reagan Planned to Kill National Endowment for Arts,” New York Times, May 15, 1988.

  112. Text of H.CON.RES 57:

  Whereas, jazz has achieved preeminence throughout the world as an indigenous American music and art form, bringing to this country and the world a uniquely American musical synthesis and culture through the African-American experience and

  1. makes evident to the world an outstanding artistic model of individual expression and democratic cooperation within the creative process, thus fulfilling the highest ideals and aspirations of our republic,

  2. is a unifying force, bridging cultural, religious, ethnic and age differences in our diverse society,

  3. is a true music of the people, finding its inspiration in the cultures and most personal experiences of the diverse peoples that constitute our Nation,

  4. has evolved into a multifaceted art form which continues to birth and nurture new stylistic idioms and cultural fusions,

  5. has had an historic, pervasive and continuing influence on other genres of music both here and abroad, and

  6. has become a true international language adopted by musicians around the world as a music best able to express contemporary realities from a personal perspective;

  Whereas, this great American musical art form has not yet been properly recognized nor accorded the institutional status commensurate with its value and importance;

  Whereas, it is important for the youth of America to recognize and understand jazz as a significant part of their cultural and intellectual heritage;

  Whereas, in as much as there exists no effective national infrastructure to support and preserve jazz;

  Whereas, documentation and archival support required by such a great art form has yet to be systematically applied to the jazz field; and

  Whereas, it is now in the best interest of the national welfare and all of our citizens to preserve and celebrate this unique art form;

  Now, therefore be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that it is the sense of the Congress that jazz is hereby designated as a rare and valuable national American treasure to which we should devote our attention, support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated.

  113. Howard Reich, “Jazz at the White House Newport Stars, The Clintons And WTTW Celebrate America’s Music,” Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1993.

  114. Peter Watrous, “Jazz at the White House: A Metaphor for Democracy (and a Help to the Boss),” New York Times, September 21, 1998.

  115. Ibid.

  116. “NEA Jazz Masters Honored At White House Event: A Salute to NEA Jazz Masters Celebrates Black Music Month,” National Endowment for the Arts press release, Washington, D.C., June 22, 2004.

  117. Public Law 108-72. SEC. 6. Sense of Congress Regarding Jazz Appreciation Month.

  (a) FINDINGS- Congress finds the following:

  (1) On December 4, 1987, Congress approved House Concurrent Resolution 57, designating jazz as ‘a rare and valuable national American treasure’.

  (2) Jazz has inspired some of the Nation’s leading creative artists and ranks as one of the greatest cultural exports of the United States.

  (3) Jazz is an original American art form which has inspired dancers, choreographers, poets, novelists, filmmakers, classical composers, and musicians in many other kinds of music.

  (4) Jazz has become an international language that bridges cultural differences and brings people of all races, ages, and backgrounds together.

  (5) The jazz heritage of the United States should be appreciated as broadly as possible and should be part of the educational curriculum for children in the United States.

  (6) The Smithsonian Institution has played a vital role in the preservation of American culture, including art and music.

  (7) The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History has established April as Jazz Appreciation Month to pay tribute to jazz as both a historic and living American art form.

  (8) The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History has received great contributions toward this effort from other governmental agencies and cultural organizations.

  (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS It is the sense of Congress that—

  (1) the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History should be commended for establishing a Jazz Appreciation Month; and

  (2) musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate, and honor jazz as a national and world treasure.

  118. “Remarks by the First Lady at the White House Music Series: The Jazz Studio,” Office of the First Lady, The White House, June 15, 2009.

  119. Schudel, “Top Jazz Students.

  120. “Remarks by the First Lady at the White House Music Series: The Jazz Studio,” White House press release, Office of the First Lady, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2009.

  Chapter 8

  1. “Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Race.” See Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League: http://www.unia-acl.org/archive/declare.htm.

  2. Ibid, http://www.unia-acl.org/archive/anthem.htm.

  3. “’Black House’ for Capitol, [sic]” New York Times, August 18, 1920.

  4. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), pp. 481–483. In a parallel development, race riots also broke out in the United Kingdom in Liverpool, London, and Cardiff during this same summer. In Cardiff, lynch mobs raided the black community and at least three people were killed and dozens were injured. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/​pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/​demobilisation.htm.

  5. For a listing of all the cities where riots occurred, see “For Action on Race Riot Peril,” New York Times, October 5, 1919.

  6. David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 279, 281–2.

  7. Mark I. Solomon, The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), pp. 3–21.

  8. Garvey would later name of one of the ships he planned to use to ferry blacks to Africa the Booker T. Washington.

  9. “Meeting Of The Universal Negro Improvement Association,” http://www.inithebabeandsuckling.com/GARVEY.html.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Robert Hill, The Marcus Garvey and Universal Improvement Association Papers: 27 August 1919–31 August 1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 35.

  14. Ibid, p. 36.

  15. Ibid, p. 38.

  16. Ibid, p. 39. Robert Moten was Booker T. Washington’s successor at the Tuskegee Institute.

  17. Letter to Harry M. Daugherty, United States Attorney-General from Harry H. Pace et al. Undated. Cited in Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey: or Africa for the Africans, Vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 1967), pp. 294-300.

  18. Ibid, Hill, p. 25; and “Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis, January 6, 1923. Marcus Garvey website: http://www.marcusgarvey.com/wmview.php?ArtID=423.

  19. The only major work on Callie House and the National Ex-Slave Mutu
al Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association has been done by civil rights activist and legal scholar Mary Frances Berry. See Mary Frances Berry, My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparation (New York: Vintage Books, 2005).

  20. Individuals over 70 years of age would get a lump sum of $500 and a monthly pension of $15. Those between 60 and 70 would receive a $300 lump sum and $12 monthly. Those between 50 and 60 would receive a $100 lump sum and $8 monthly. And finally, those under 50 would receive $4 monthly. As they aged, they would receive a corresponding increase in monthly pension. Ibid, p. 34.

  21. Callie House letter to membership, undated. Cited in Mary Francis Berry, p. 78.

  22. Ibid, Berry, p. 84.

  23. For a discussion of the abuses of the Post Office, see Dorothy Garfield Fowler, Unmailable: Congress and the Post Office (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1977).

  24. Ibid, Berry, p. 83.

  25. Ibid, Kornweibel, p. 104.

  26. Theodore Kornweibel Jr., “Seeing Red”: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 20–21, 46–47.

  27. Ibid, p. 102.

  28. BBC, “Interview with Martin Luther King, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/​world_news_america/​7838851.stm. Accessed July 26, 2009.

  29. Shirley Chisholm, “It is Time for a Change,” in Philip S. Foner, ed., The Voice of Black America: Major Speeches by Negroes in the United States, 1797-1971 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), p. 1153.

  30. Ibid, 1156.

  31. John Nichols, “Shirley Chisholm’s Legacy,” The Nation, January 3, 2005. See The Nation website: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/2098.

  32. Ibid, Nichols; and Peniel Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2010), p. 188.

  33. Ibid, Nichols. The first African American to receive votes for the presidential nomination at a major party convention was Frederick Douglass at the 1888 Republican National Convention. Rev. Channing Philips, a Washington, D.C.-based minister who led the D.C. delegation to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, had his name put in for the nomination and received 68 votes, thus becoming the first African American at the DNC to receive votes for nomination for the president.

  34. James Haskins, Fighting Shirley Chisholm (New York: The Dial Press, 1975), pp. 167, 173.

  35. Shirley Chisholm, The Good Fight (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 3.

  36. See Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed (Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin, 1970).

  37. Jesse Jackson, “A Chance to Serve,” in Jesse Jackson and Frank Clemente, Keep Hope Alive: Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Presidential Campaign (Boston: South End Press, 1989), p. 32.

  38. For a critique of the rise and fall of the National Rainbow Coalition, see Sheila Collins, The Rainbow Challenge: The Jackson Campaign and the Future of U.S. Politics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987).

  39. R.H. Melton and Richard Morin, “Wilder Taking Command in Va. Race, Polls Show,” Washington Post, October 29, 1989.

  40. Scott Keeter and Nilanthi Samaranayake, Can You Trust What Polls Say about Obama’s Electoral Prospects?, Pew Research Center, 2007. See Pew Research Center website: http://pewresearch.org.

  41. http://www.4president.org/speeches/​dougwilder1992announcement.htm.

  42. Dwayne Yancey, When Hell Froze Over: The Untold Story of Doug Wilder, A Black Politician’s Rise to Power in the South (Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 1988), p. 34.

  43. Robert Jordan, “Is the Jackson Political Era Ending?,” Boston Globe, December 3, 1989.

  44. Juan Williams, “One-Man Show,” Washington Post, June 9, 1991.

  45. David Mills, “Sister Souljah’s Call to Arms,” Washington Post, May 13, 1992.

  46. Clinton also allowed the execution of a mentally retarded black man, Ricky Ray, on January 24, 1992, to burnish, many felt, his credentials with the law-and-order crowd. Despite pleadings to commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole from Jackson, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others, Clinton refused. Nat Hentoff, “Hard Line on the Death Penalty,” Washington Post, March 21, 1992; and “Reverend Jesse Jackson and Rainbow Coalition Ask Clinton to Spare Rector,” press release, National Rainbow Coalition, Chicago, January 24, 1993.

  47. “Preacher ends another electoral bid,” on CNN website: http://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/​special/president/​candidates/sharpton.html.

  48. Peter Wallsten, “Obama’s New Partner: Al Sharpton,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2010.

  49. Ibid.

  50. Sally Cragin, “Black Leaders Press Obama on Economic Help for African-Americans,” Boston Globe, February 11, 2010.

  51. Maureen O’Donnell, “Panel Criticizes Obama’s Handling of Black Agenda,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 21, 2010.

  52. Brigid Schulte, “Gingrich, Sharpton Finally Teammates: Close Education Gap,” Washington Post, May 17, 2009.

  53. David C. Ruffin, “Moseley Braun & Sharpton Eye Presidential Nominations; Funding is Likely to Be a Big Challenge for Both Campaigns, Black Enterprise, June 1, 2003, pp. 31-2.

  54. For a listing of Helms most outrageous statements and behavior, see John Nichols, “Jesse Helms, John McCain and the Mark of the White Hands,” The Nation, July 4, 2008. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/334586.

  55. See Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainsville: University of Florida, 2003).

  56. All quotes are from Marc Fisher, “When Sexuality Undercuts a Family’s Ties,” Washington Post, February 13, 2005.

  57. “Obama Wins Senate Race to Become 5th Black U.S. Senator in History,” USA Today, November 2, 2004.

  58. Ibid, Fisher.

  59. Alan Keyes, “Obama’s on the Verge of Outright Dictatorship. Loyal to Liberty: http://loyaltoliberty.com/.

  60. Dizzy Gillespie, Dizzy To Be Or Not To Bop: The Autobiography of Dizzy Gillespie (London: Quartet Books Limited, 1982), p. 456.

  61. Ibid, p. 453.

  62. Ibid, p. 453.

  63. Ibid, p. 454.

  64. Ibid, pp. 454–457.

  65. Ibid, p. 456.

  66. See Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (New York: Dutton, 1993).

  67. Fannie Lou Hamer, “Testimony Before the 1964 DNC Credentials Committee,” in Jonathan Birnbaum and Clarence Taylor, eds, Civil Rights Since 1787: A Reader on the Black Struggle (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 522.

  68. Ibid, pp. 522–523

  69. John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995).

  70. John Fordham, “Dizzy for President,” Guardian, October 20, 2004.

  71. Ibid, Gillespie, p. 460.

  72. Eldridge Cleaver, “Revolution in the White Mother Country and National Liberation in the Black Colony,” in Philip S. Foner, ed., The Voice of Black America: Major Speeches by Negroes in the United States, 1797-1971 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), pp. 1104-1105.

  73. Huey Newton, “In Defense of Self-Defense: Exeuctive Mandate Number One,” in Philip Sheldon Foner and Clayborne Carson, eds., The Black Panthers Speak (New York: Da Capo Press, 2002), p. 41.

  74. See Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1998); and Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006).

  75. Eldridge Cleaver for President Fund, “Cleaver for President,” New York Times, November 7, 1968.

  76. See Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1978); and; Robert Scheer, ed., Eldridge Cleaver: Post-Prison Writings and Speeches, (New York:
Vintage Books, 1969).

  77. John Kifner, “Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Who Became G.O.P. Conservative, Is Dead at 62,” New York Times, May 2, 1998.

  78. Bruce Headlam, “For Him, the Political Has Always Been Comical,” New York Times, March 13, 2009.

  79. Paul Krassner, Who’s to Say What’s Obscene? Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009), p. 35.

  80. “Dick Gregory Biography.” See AEI Speakers Bureau website: http://www.aeispeakers.com/print.php?SpeakerID=461.

  81. Dick Gregory, Write Me In! (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 24.

  82. Ibid, p. 18.

  83. Ibid, p. 49.

  84. Ibid, p. 104.

  85. Ibid, p. 58.

  86. See Mark Lane and Dick Gregory, Code Name “Zorro”: The Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977).

  87. George E. Jordan, “Fulani Party Raises Funds Creatively,” New York Newsday, April 6, 1992.

  88. Marina Ortiz, “The New Alliance Party: Parasites in Drag,”The NY Planet, March 31, 1993. The Public Eye website: http://www.publiceye.org/newman/critics/​NY-Planet-1993.html.

  89. Ibid, Jordan.

  90. Ibid, Oritz.

  91. For Fulani’s own assessment of her campaigns, see Lenora B. Fulani, The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992 (New York: Castillo International, 1992.)

  92. Michael T. Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto, Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), pp. 602, 604.

  93. Paulette Pierce, “The Roots of the Rainbow Coalition,” The Black Scholar, March/April 1988, p. 9.

  94. Ron Daniels, announce speech, October 14, 1991, Washington, D.C.

  95. Cynthia McKinney, “Acceptance Remarks,” Green Party Convention, Chicago, Illinois, July 12, 2008. See Independent Political Report website: http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/​2008/07/mckinneys-​acceptance-speech/.

  96. David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), p. 553.

  97. Peter John Ling, Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 270.